l?> 



were all used in the making of sauces. 



Of spices they had plenty : pepper, long and short, ginger, malo- 

 bathrum, cassium, folium, costus, spikenard — all from the East. Then 

 they had another spice a host in itself, si/p/iium, laser, or laserpitium, 

 used in root, leaf, and in juice. This was once the staple product 

 of Cyrene, and sold almost for its weight in silver. It is now lost; 

 we don't know what it was : the coins of Cyrene show it to have 

 been an umbelliferous plant : assafastida has been suggested, and 

 Smollett adopts this notion, and introduces at the " Dinner in the 

 Manner of the Ancients," a jelly of vinegar, pickle, and honey 

 boiled together, and garnished with candied assafaetida. But 

 Humelbergius and Dr. Lister strongly oppose this view. Assafsetida 

 is even now used in cookery by modern arabs. 



Cinnamon the Romans did not use, except on the funeral pyre. 

 But with that exception, and the exception of lemon juice, almost 

 all things that offered zest, that insured flavour, that assisted 

 appetite, and promoted digestion, were imported by the Roman 

 into sauce and stew. 



There was a something else, with which Roman cooks tempered 



